Land Use Policies

Land Use composition should contribute to achieving the future direction of the City while providing a broad range of housing options, commercial and employment opportunities, and enhancing community character and overall quality of life. It represents the City's official policy for land use, development, and growth, and is the basis for recommendations on future zoning requests, use of other implementation tools, and shall guide agency coordination.

Growth within Sioux Center should promote a compact development pattern. Concentrate growth and development in areas where housing, employment, shopping and cultural assets form special places.

• Create Special Places. The City should maintain and enhance its character and sense of place by creating special places along designated nodes, corridors, and districts, as designated by the Future Land Use map.
• Well-defined Edge. Sioux Center should retain a clear and well-defined edge where growth and development in-and -around the City ends and rural areas begins. Future growth will focus on infill development and revitalization within the existing city limits before growing outward in order to maximize the use of existing infrastructure and efficiently utilize the land.
• Annexation. The City should consider voluntary annexation of new territory into the City limits when the annexation of such property conforms to the goals and polices of the City.

Reinvest in existing commercial districts by encouraging targeted development, redevelopment and infill at existing locations so to channel growth where it will contribute to existing investment and leverage existing infrastructure investments.

• Target Commercial Districts. Promote opportunities for District development in locations served by existing infrastructure when appropriate design elements or land use transitions of lower intensity land uses can be utilized to mitigate incompatible impacts on adjacent neighborhoods.
• Districts are best suited in areas where there is existing zoning for it and where there is or should be adequate infrastructure to support it.
• The size and scale of uses within Districts should vary, but new development should be encouraged to locate and design buildings that provide pedestrian-oriented site design, and convenient, safe, and attractive parking.
• Districts with high intensity uses, such as general commercial, should have easy access to highways that provide efficient trucking access.
• Direct the clustering of District uses toward strategic intersections, corridors, and areas adjacent to compatible uses.

Where feasible, encourage the gradual evolution of existing, auto-dominated strip commercial areas to compact commercial places with enhanced walking connections and pedestrian amenities.

• Apply Compatible Uses. Commercial development should be compatible with nearby development and adequately buffered to mitigate adverse impacts on residential neighborhoods.
• Encourage Quality Design. The size and scale of commercial development should vary, but new development should be encouraged to locate and design buildings that provide pedestrian-oriented site design and convenient, safe, and attractive parking that is shaded and buffered from street views with landscape.

Target the development of Neighborhood Commercial nodes in order to improve delivery of public and private services and reduce vehicle trips.

• Create Identity. Nodes should be distinct and identifiable places. The streets, blocks, landscape, site furnishings, materials and the architectural character of buildings, should contribute to the identity and sense of place. Nodes are best suited in areas where there is existing zoning for it and where there is or should be adequate infrastructure to support it.

Invest in the Downtown area as the mixed-use activity hub of the City, with gathering areas integrating retail sites, commercial uses, entertainment opportunities, public buildings, townhouses, and institutional uses.

• Unique Mixed Use. Expand Downtown as a unique mixed-use destination that targets development between the Mall and the old Hospital site. Create a unique, potentially multicultural, market-niche of desirable combination of uses and activities that will enliven the heart of the community throughout the year.
• Provide Housing Choice. Housing should be available adjacent to the Downtown area to provide activity, vitality and housing choice.
• Be Walkable. Downtown should be pedestrian-oriented with wide sidewalks, shaded seating opportunities, on-street parking, public open spaces, and other traffic calming features.